


exposure therapy

by etoilette



Series: Kinktober 2020 [7]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Bad Ending, Implied/Referenced Mind Control, M/M, Rape/Non-con Elements, Tentacles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:13:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26883442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/etoilette/pseuds/etoilette
Summary: Day #7 of Kinktober: Tentacles"I can try," Joker says. His voice wobbles slightly at the sight of the thick tentacle squirming so deep inside of Crow that he can see the protrusion worming around through his stomach. He clears his throat and tries again. "I can try to talk sense into him. Please just stop this."Maruki shakes his head. "Akechi-kun will never forgive me, nor will he ever forgive you. He'll try again and again unless I can place him under my thrall. The only other choice you have is to kill him."
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Maruki Takuto, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: Kinktober 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949695
Comments: 4
Kudos: 84





	exposure therapy

The second that Akechi disappeared from Leblanc after Akira told him his decision to stay in Maruki's reality, he felt something like unease churn inside of him. The expression on Akechi's face had been full of angry resolve and cold determination; it hadn't been the face of someone who's about to accept an unjust and one-sided decision.

He isn't sure what it is, isn't sure if it's anything beyond a gut feeling. He bundles himself up and races for the Palace, hoping against hope that he's just thinking a little too much. Maybe he'll get there before Akechi can do anything rash. Maybe he'll enter the Palace only to hear from Maruki that he hadn't seen Akechi all night.

That's the ideal situation, so of course, it doesn't happen.

He doesn't even need to travel very far. Maruki is right at the entrance, his mysterious Persona's strange glowing tentacles protruding from the walls and the ground, so much and so concentrated that Akira can't even see the sterile white of his Palace anymore.

In the middle of it all, held aloft in the air by a tentacle wrapped around his middle and a tentacle inside of his ass, is Crow. His eyes burn a furious crimson as he glares rebelliously at Maruki, but the glow dissipates into shock when he sees Joker.

"J—" he starts to say before yet another tentacle shoots up from the ground and stuffs itself into his mouth. It pulses with an ethereal light, just like the others, and Crow shakes his head wildly to try and dislodge it.

"Ah, Kurusu-kun," Maruki says, sounding contrite. He looks genuinely uncomfortable at the situation, and he rubs the back of his neck with a hand. "I'm sorry you had to see this. I was hoping to finish this procedure before you woke up tomorrow."

"What are you doing?" Joker demands. He pulls out his dagger and points it threateningly at Maruki. His mask fades away in blue fire, and Arsene manifests behind him, wings spread wide in a protective stance. "Let Crow go."

Maruki doesn't say anything. He just keeps staring at Joker with those sad, too-knowing eyes.

"Please, Maruki-sensei," Joker begs, not caring if Crow chose to look down on him later for this. "We were going to accept your world. Just let him go. I'll have a talk with him later."

"Does the Akechi-kun you know seem the type of person who will give up on something just because you tried to talk with him? Especially something that he clearly feels strongly about?" Maruki asks. His voice is curious, as if he's asking Akira a question about philosophy that he just happened to come up with during their therapy sessions. He doesn't sound at all like a man who is holding a boy hostage, stuffing tentacles into every orifice it can find. "Do you really think that he'll stop trying to kill me if you have a word with him?"

Joker's mouth feels dry. "He tried to kill you?" he rasps.

Maruki nods. "Just now."

Crow must have entered the Palace right after he left Leblanc, just like he had expected. Joker isn't sure if Crow planned to actually murder Maruki in an attempt to undo their reality, or if Crow had simply attempted to threaten him into surrender. But without back-up, in a Palace so bright that Crow's dark outfit makes him stand out like a sore thumb, he must have been captured easily.

"I can try," Joker says. His voice wobbles slightly at the sight of the thick tentacle squirming so deep inside of Crow that he can see the protrusion worming around through his stomach. He clears his throat and tries again. "I can try to talk sense into him. Please just stop this."

Maruki shakes his head. "Akechi-kun will never forgive me, nor will he ever forgive you. He'll try again and again unless I can place him under my thrall. The only other choice you have is to kill him."

The idea of killing Akechi, of permanently removing him from the world after _just_ getting him back through a miracle, has Joker shaking his head before he even realizes it. He can't go back to that cold emptiness, when the world had been so distant he might as well have been seeing things through a sheen of glass.

"I'm not going to kill him," Joker says firmly. "I'm not going to let you kill him either. I swear, Maruki-sensei, I'll figure out a way. If anyone can get Crow to listen, it's me."

Maruki smiles for the first time all day. He waves his hand and the tentacles holding Crow move towards Joker, who reaches his arms out, prepared to gather Crow up and never let him out of his sight again. But the Persona's appendages don't let go, dangling its cargo tantalizingly.

"Release him," Joker says, though well aware that he's in no position to make any demands at the moment.

The tendrils inside Crow's mouth and ass don't move, simply glowing faintly with that same white light, but there is a distinct look of shamed discomfort on Crow's face that makes Joker's heart ache.

"I'll release him after he fully accepts this reality," Maruki says. "I can't risk him trying to attack me again."

Joker isn't completely sure if Maruki means to save himself with this, or if he believes that the next encounter would end up with Crow's death, but before he could ask, he sees the tentacles in Crow's mouth start to thrust, in and out. The one in his ass moves as well, wriggling as if it's alive.

"Wait!" Joker yells. Crow's crying out, his voice muffled, and before Joker's horrified eyes, he sees the tentacles glow even brighter. Sees another tentacle emerge from the cocoon they're in and squeeze itself into Crow's asshole right next to its partner.

Crow's dick is hard, leaking pre-cum onto the ground, and another tentacle reaches over, its claw-like hand flexing before it clamps itself onto the heated flesh. Crow screams, writhing in the hold, which only tightens in response.

"Please stop this," Joker implores. He almost wants to get on hand and knee if it means Maruki will leave Crow in peace. "Please just let us go."

Maruki sighs. "I can't keep having this conversation over and over again, Kurusu-kun. I'll only let him go if he fully and wholeheartedly accepts this reality, and the only way that will ever happen is through this."

Crow is staring at Joker, a promise of death in his eyes. Whose death it is is unclear. He wouldn't put it past Crow to murder Maruki and Joker for this later, but he can easily imagine Akechi taking the first opportunity he can find and shooting himself in the head. It's a thought that sends Joker into panic, and it's a struggle to calm down his fast and shallow breathing.

Akechi's still here. Crow's still alive. It's still okay.

The tentacle in Crow's mouth drags out, wiping the white leaking out of itself off on Crow's swollen lips. It takes a second for Crow to cough as air flows back into his lungs properly, but when he focuses his eyes back onto Joker, there's nothing but ice-cold determination in his eyes. Just like when he had left Leblanc earlier that night.

"Joker," Crow snarls. "You have to cut me free and help me kill Maruki _now_ or everything I've fought for up to this point will have been useless. Everyone I've killed, every crime I've committed...my entire existence would have been a farce. You have to do this for me."

But Joker can see the future as if it was being played out right in front of him. Can see the earth-shatteringly grief that would permeate his life from that point forth. Could he go back to that emptiness, to that moment in front of the toy store, after managing to hold Akechi Goro in his arms again? Could Joker really look himself in the mirror, years down the line, and say to himself that he made the right decision here in this moment, when he is alone and tired?

No. Joker could, maybe. But Kurusu Akira could never.

Arsene fades away, taking the mask and the black outfit of rebellion from Joker — no, Akira — as he does so. Crow's eyes widen and he stutters out Akira's name. No doubt he's confused. No doubt he's surprised. Akira would be too, if their positions were reversed. Or maybe not. Crow had always mocked him for his bleeding heart, took pride in his agency and will.

If their situations were flipped, Crow would have put a bullet into his head already.

But no matter how much he tries, Akira could never be Crow. He can't even commit to being Joker at this crucial moment. At the end of the day, he's nothing.

He places his hand on Crow's cheek, rubbing it as tenderly as he could, and he closes his eyes. In a way, that future is already here, because the Crow he's caressing now will be gone forever.

"Just let go," he says, hearing the soft hitch of breath that has nothing to do with the fucking. "Just let go and let yourself be happy for once in your life."

"You have to be ki—" Crow starts before he devolves into breathless grunting when Maruki snaps his fingers.

The tentacles start to move faster around him. The hand around Crow's dick pumps in a rough milking motion, and the two tentacles in his anus thrusts in tandem — one slides until Akira can see the start of the tendril's spindly knuckles while the other one reaches so deep inside that Crow's air is practically punched out of him.

Each tentacle pulses with a faint glow and Akira has to ask. "What are they even doing to him?"

"It's a concentrated version of my actualization power," Maruki explains. "Azatoth is how I am bending Mementos to my will, and it takes time for it to cover every layer of it. In this more direct method, I can leave my influence faster and with more certainly."

Throughout his entire explanation, the Persona doesn't stop, even moving faster if Crow's rolled-up eyes indicate.

There's nothing in his mouth, so Akira rubs his thumb over the curve of Crow's cheek. When Crow opens his mouth to let out a debauched sigh, Akira presses his own against it.

It's warm, and he can catch a lingering bitterness of coffee. He hadn't had the chance to give Akechi anything when they were at Leblanc, so he must have had some either before or after his talk with Maruki. Akira chases away the taste with his tongue, pressing in so deep he can feel his nose squished against Crow's face, hungrily swallowing down the sounds of Crow's resistance.

Akira can feel the exact moment that Azatoth finally comes. The Persona speeds up, the sound of the slick squelching out of Crow deafening, until it plants itself in at the thickest parts.

Crow's breath hitches and trembles, and Akira breaks the kiss so he doesn't pass out from oxygen deprivation. Crow's eyes roll up to the back of his head as he moans, and when Akira looks under him, he sees that the hand around his dick managed to stroke him to completion. White cum drips out of his softening dick, travelling down the length of the tentacle, pooling onto the ground. Another tentacle detaches itself from somewhere and cleans it up meticulously.

"No, Joker," Crow gasps, a strange dull entering his red eyes. "You can't do this to me..."

"I'm not trying to do anything to you," Akira whispers against his lips, pressing his nose against his. "I'm just trying to save you."

The tentacles pull out of Crow slowly, one by one. A thick translucent fluid pours out of the empty ass, pooling on the floor, but the tentacle holding Crow in the air doesn't let go or release him.

"Crow, are you going to stay in this reality with me?" Akira asks, pitching his question loud for Maruki's benefit. He runs his hand through Crow's hair, hoping against hope that he had been tamed by Maruki's tentacles.

But Crow glares at him, visible strain in his face even as the light in his eyes start to fade away. "Never," he spits. "I'd rather die."

"This might take a while, Kurusu-kun," Maruki sighs. Two more tentacles descend from the ceiling to plunge themselves into Crow's loose asshole, and another one emerges from the ground to gently scrape its nail against the slit of his red penis, straining to harden up again. Yet two other appendanges snake up from behind Akira, shooting past him to tweak at Crow's nipples, playing his body like a guitar string as Crow's words fall away into his whines again.

Akira's hands shake — out of fear, arousal, distress, guilt...a combination of any and all of those feelings — as he strokes his fingers through Crow's hair, pressing himself close to his face and whispering again and again.

"Just let go, Akechi. Just let go. Come on, Akechi, you can do it. We'll take care of you."

Over and over again.

He doesn't know how long Crow's iron willpower can withstand against direct contact with power of Maruki's level. He isn't sure what kind of person Akechi will be after Maruki reshapes him into one who will peacefully accept the cookie cutter fantasy they'll find themselves in.

But as long as this temporary pain can lead to an everlasting peace, Akira is willing to make the sacrifice for them.

**Author's Note:**

> CW: Brief mention of suicide


End file.
